Money for special needs pupils 'being misspent'

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

12:01AM GMT 26 Nov 2007

Money intended for children with special educational needs is being misspent by schools, it is claimed today.

Some of the £2 billion delegated to mainstream schools to spend on pupils with special needs is being used to cut class sizes, stock libraries and provide English language tuition, an investigation by Channel 4 News claims.

Charities claim some schools are using the funds to re-paint buildings and upgrade gym facilities. The Conservatives branded the disclosures "profoundly worrying".

About one child in five is identified as having special educational needs (SEN) - which range from learning difficulties such as dyslexia to serious physical disabilities. A small number of children get specialist help after being given a "statement" - a legal document setting out the support a local education authority must provide. But others - often with less severe problems - are dealt with in mainstream schools using funds allocated to head teachers.

The Policy Exchange think-tank analysed budgets in five London schools and found that money allocated for SEN was being used for other purposes.

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In a report, it said there was "no sense of money being ring-fenced at school level to specifically cater for SEN", insisting that "smaller class sizes" were often seen as the best way of "delivering on performance targets".

Local authorities have a legal duty to explain what help schools give to pupils with special needs. But in a report to be broadcast tonight, Channel 4 News finds at least 17 were providing insufficient guidance to schools.

Others were allowing schools to put special needs money into a general pot for educational resources, with cash often going to "gifted and talented" children or English language tuition.

Eirwen Grenfell-Essam, the chairman of the charity Network 81, said money was being spent on "anything from a new car park, new toilets, painting the outside or inside, having a new roof as well as actually staffing".

Michael Gove, the shadow children's minister, said: "I think it's profoundly worrying if parents find that when their children have special education needs … the extra money that comes in order to fund provision for those children is being spent elsewhere."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said ministers had "massively increased" funding for pupils with special needs - from just over £?2 billion to £4.5 billion.

'Where are the millions going?’

Debbie French is keeping her son Jack out of school because she claims he is being failed by the mainstream system.

Jack, who started secondary school in September, has Asperger’s syndrome, an autistic spectrum disorder, but the local council refused to give him a special educational needs statement — a legal document which sets out the support a local education authority is obliged to provide.

His mother, from Hertfordshire, said: “It’s not fair on Jack and all the other children like Jack who aren’t getting help. They’re pushed to one side and excluded from school and made unhappy. “It’s failing the children. They say all these millions are going into it — but where are the millions going?”